Terry Flood Poet Lyric

Notes About The Poem

 For Contest: Lyrical Tribute

Sponsor: Tom Woody

5 January 2026

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Lyrics = Human(Me), music = AI

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Listen to poem:

Safari Sam - In Memoriam

Safari Sam, a humble man, quite famous in his day
He’d always worked with animals with which he had a way 
No Doolittle pretender he could tame the wildest beast
Not by speech… but with his song he’d quell their need to feast

A gentle song sedate in tone
No beast would bare its teeth
To munch its way through flesh or bone
To shake Sam’s self belief
For Sam’s chosen vocation
Was to work with beasts in need
Be they blind or lame or sick
No matter what their breed

His reputation travelled well; one day he’d got a call
A wildlife park for needy beasts where he could tend them all
No pay did he require for his skills he volunteered
The management were quids in though they thought him rather weird

But savage beasts unfit to ever make it in the wild
Would eye him in their hunger, til he sang his song so mild 
Then each would lie before him and accept a belly rub
Even Len the Lion would forget his need for grub

A gentle song sedate in tone
No beast would bare its teeth
To munch its way through flesh or bone
To shake Sam’s self belief
For Sam’s chosen vocation
Was to work with beasts in need
Be they blind or lame or sick
No matter what their breed

Journalists and T.V. crews would try to spread the news
But Sam, self deprecating, would refuse all interviews
His song, his gift, he never would exploit to earn a buck
His way with ailing beasts was not a skill but simply luck

So Sam chose anonymity and shunned the public eye
His fan club were his animals, which made him laugh and cry
But he was not complacent so no meat was served up raw
He told the chef, “Serve just cooked meat, so that they’ll know the score.”

A gentle song sedate in tone
No beast would bare its teeth
To munch its way through flesh or bone
To shake Sam’s self belief
For Sam’s chosen vocation
Was to work with beasts in need
Be they blind or lame or sick
No matter what their breed

So with the beasts contented with their freshly roasted meat
And Sam’s own gift of gentle song to keep them purring sweet
He’d earned the name ‘Safari Sam’, he’d felt a little pride
Poor Sam would lose his life to cats…… whose jaws were gaping wide

Safari Sam had sung his song but still they circled round
And Sam who’s song was silenced as they dragged him to the ground
Fell victim to those tigers who saw no need for a chef
Should someone not have told him…… that the bloody things were deaf!

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Linda Alice Fowler February 7, 2026 at 12:43 PM LOL Terry You never disappoint me with your humor and story-telling. Great job! :) Terry Flood February 8, 2026 at 2:35 PM Thank you, Linda. A longer poem than I thought it would be but you can’t kill off a hero in a couple of verses… that would never do ;-)

Tom Cunningham January 4, 2026 at 9:18 PM Lol, outstanding humour Terry. You are the master of the punchline. You'd make a great on stage comedian because your work is actually funny. Tom Terry Flood January 5, 2026 at 12:48 AM Actually, Tom, I still prefer my original ending was that the tigers were nicknamed ‘Mutt’ and ‘Jeff’, but Google suggested that our friends worldwide would not get the Cockney rhyming slang. C’est la vie ;-) Glad you enjoyed.